The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday unsealed four arrest warrants against senior Taliban figures, accusing them of persecuting women and girls in Afghanistan, acts that the Court’s prosecutors say constitute crimes against humanity.

The four warrants against Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, Education Minister Habibullah Agha and Higher Education Minister Neda Mohammad Nadim were issued between July and September 2025. The ICC founds that there were reasonable grounds to believe all four figures were criminally responsible for ordering, inducing or soliciting persecution, which the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, defines as a crime against humanity under Article 7(1)(h).

The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber II found that while the policies put in place by the Taliban resulted in serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms of all civilians—including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and enforced disappearances—it noted that women and girls were disproportionately targeted because of their gender.

“Through decrees and edicts, they were severely deprived of their rights to education, privacy and family life and of the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion,” the press release said.

The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security has argued that the Taliban’s acts and their introduction of harsh new Criminal Court Procedural Regulations violate key provisions of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam regarding equality (Articles 1 and 6), the right to life, liberty and safety from bodily harm (Article 2), and the right to pursue knowledge and education (Article 9). The Taliban’s acts are also said to violate Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which guarantees everyone the right to life, liberty, and security of person.

The ICC judges founds that the Rome Statute’s definition of gender must recognize the socially constructed roles, behaviours, expectations and hierarchies traditionally linked to people because of their sex—commonly known as gender norms—when assessing gender persecution. The Court added that systemic and institutionalized harm, which includes imposing and mandating discriminatory social norms, is also covered by the persecution, in addition to direct violence.

More than two million women and girls have been denied secondary and higher education since 2021. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, in a statement, said millions of Afghan citizens are living in poverty, respect for basic human rights in the country continues to deteriorate, and he implored governments to reconsider their actions to prioritize the lives and safety of the suffering population and to pressure the Taliban into complying with the country’s international obligations.

“This year, fresh decrees issued by the de facto authorities make it more difficult for a woman to separate from a spouse, and implicitly authorise child marriage and violence against women and children,” Türk said.

The Court emphasized its crucial role in balancing the rights of victims and accused, pursuant to Article 68(1) of the Rome Statute, which protects victims’ safety, dignity and well-being while ensuring the accused have a fair trial.